I made the original fossil fish quite a while ago with the process of paper fabric lamination and a silk screen that I created. It didn’t actually turn out that well so I added free motion machine stitching to enhance the paper fabric lamination process. Then I put the fish away in a pile of stuff and completely forgot about it. I decided that it has been hiding in my studio long enough. I needed to finish it.

Here you can see that the fish design is on the white organza ready to be felted. I have a piece of blue prefelt below it that was a left over from some other project. I don’t even remember what type of fiber is used in the prefelt. Not always the best idea when nuno felting but I just decided to go for it.

I spent quite a bit of time rubbing the surface of the organza so the fibers would migrate through.

This is the piece after felting. Some of the organza isn’t really all that well adhered but since it is going to be a wall piece, it doesn’t really matter.

And here’s a closer view when it is still wet.

Here’s the piece dry and framed. Do you have pieces floating around that need to be finished? It’s always nice to get a UFO (unfinished object) out of the studio and completed.

Thanks Leonor. The organza being wrinkly is part of the nuno felting process. The felt shrinks but the organza doesn’t so it gives you ruching or the wrinkled texture. So there isn’t any way for me to avoid the wrinkles.

It looks very effective Ruth, especially the rippled water. And more blue seems to have come through on the fish than on the surrounding “water”, so you get a similar reflective effect to a shiny fish body.

Maybe it’s my monitor, but it looks more icy than watery to me! The textures are great, I like organza, because it seems like the least predictable fabric, both in how it’ll attach/ripple, but also the colours, it changes and looks so different depending on what you use it with. Very cool looking in the frame 🙂 I have tons of UFOs, I might get the sewing machine out soon.